52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy – Paid Online Genealogy Tools

This challenge runs from Sunday, January 8, 2012 through Saturday, January 14, 2012.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy (http://www.geneabloggers.com/tag/52-weeks-of-abundant-genealogy/) by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

This one is easy. I use Ancestry.com. Two reasons for that is the number of types of records that are found there, and the records and types of records.

The second reason is the ability to use Genealogy Management software with the records on Ancestry.com.

I think the best example happened a couple of days ago. I was looking at and working on my own ancestry, doing some clean up of the file after 12 years of using the same file. Am taking the tile to make sure that some old data / information is brought up to the way I am handing that information now.

I found a Shaky Leave (Hint) for my Father. I haven’t seen a new hint for a number of years. There were TWO new Hints. Wow! One was an obituary for him, but the second was a link to the Burlington County records website, where I can order the death record for my father. I have NOT seen that one before, nor that type of record. Both of this hints lead to an Index on Ancestry with a link to an external website, where the record could be ordered.

The best news here is that I didn’t even have to “go looking for it” it came to me.

I did a Web Merge, from Ancestry.com into my Family Tree Maker Version 2012 file with the Link, downloaded, filling in a form, and am ordering his death record.

Many of the Civil War records that I have posted on this Blog have come from Fold3. Great military website.

I have listened to Tom Kemp, of GenealogyBank, on a couple of webinars. Somewhere during each of his talks, I hear “and don’t forget about newspapers”. I am not sure he uses those exact words, but that is what I hear.

One evening, I was attending a local Family History Interest Group, and the talk was to be about GenealogyBank, but the Library Edition, as we meet at a local library. I had just listened to Mr. Kemp talk, and took a chance at doing a search for a story that had taken place at Montmorenciy (talked many times here about that). The story was that one of the owners of that house had been murdered. Hum. A very quick search on GenealogyBank found THE newspaper article that told, in vivid detail on what happened.

These paid websites have helped me move from being a “name collector” to more of a Family Historian. That is to put Stories about the Names that I have. To me, it makes them real.

Side Note: I am still waiting for GenealogyBank to have THE newspaper that has the story of my Grandfather and two of his siblings, arriving in Philadelphia, PA in 1897, where they were NOT met when they arrived by train, with name tags on their toes, after their parents and grandparent died. The story goes that they were taken to a police station, a news paper article posted, and relatives arrived to pick them up. There was a communications issue with the folks that were to pick them up, due to a Ship Wreck on the Jersey Shore that messed up the mail. Can’t find that article either. BUT I keep an eye on the GenealogyBank Blog for their updates.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars

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About this Blog

The purpose of this Blog has changed over time. What started out to be an online version of some old Worthington Descendant Newsletters.
It has become a way to journal about my adventure into Family History, sometimes called Genealogy.
The change for me is more about finding out the stories behind the names and dates that I find about the people I find in my research.